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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29903991">The Cold or Amity Blight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit'>EaglePursuit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Owl House (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Historical, Animal Death, Antarctica, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Lumity, Race to the pole, Survival, scenes of peril</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:00:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29903991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilded Age AU - The year is 1910. Luz Noceda wants to make a name for herself as an explorer and sets her sights on the South Pole. But her nemesis, Amity Blight has vowed to beat her there. Can she and her two teammates, Willow and Gus, survive the grueling conditions of the majestic, yet merciless land and persevere where no one else has dared to tread? Can she reach the pole before her rival? What can she learn about Blight's mysterious benefactor and her own?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amity Blight/Luz Noceda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Benefactor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Chapter 1</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Benefactor</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Burlington House, Mayfair, London, 1910</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So, if I take Mr. Shackleton’s route and cross the Transantarctic Mountains at the Beardmore Glacier, I can get on top of the polar plateau and it’s flat, open ice. Then I’ll just go from there to the pole, no problem.” Luz Noceda wiped the sweat off her forehead with her handkerchief, trying to maintain eye contact with the panel member that had asked her to repeat her plan for the seventh time. If she could just keep her composure, it would surely convince them that the expedition would, in fact, be no problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was a medium-complexioned, twenty-something-year-old woman. Both slight and tall, she wore an ill-fitting, dun-colored tweed suit with her unruly, overgrown brunette bob slicked back with some borrowed pomade. At that moment, she looked to all the world like a junior assistant delivery boy that had blundered through the wrong door, rather than </span>
  <em>
    <span>the </span>
  </em>
  <span>Luz Noceda. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That </span>
  </em>
  <span>Luz Noceda captured both the newspaper headlines and popular imagination of Edwardian Britain by braving the Amazon jungles, and documenting never-before-seen-by-science species of plants and animals. She had traveled the breadth of the old Silk Road in arid Central Asia, surveying the locations of scattered caravanserai ruins. She rode and paddled to Victoria Island in Northern Canada to learn Inuinnaqtun in order to better advocate for First Nations rights with the colonial government. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That </span>
  </em>
  <span>Luz did not tremble and sweat while begging the Royal Society of London to fund her next adventure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there she was. Shifting her weight from one foot to another, she silently cursed the uncomfortable oxfords that graced her feet. She missed her boots, sitting in the corner of her dingy hotel room in Southwark, the only part of London that she could afford to rent a room in. They were still caked in the red dust that they had collected in Australia. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She really did love those boots. They had been with her through a lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, she could have worn a dress with heels such as was expected of a woman, maybe with an elaborate, frilly hat. That attire, though, was far less comfortable for her than the suit she wore now. The matron of the hotel had eyed her judgmentally when she left for her meeting. Harsh glances were a small price to pay, though. She couldn’t have run in heels. Or kicked a mugger while wearing a dress. Or hidden the large knife she had strapped to the small of her back within a nest of petticoats. The thought of donning a corset made her itch, and she resisted the urge to reach under her jacket and scratch her chest. She hadn’t worn one since she ran away from the finishing school her mother had forced her to attend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she looked past the interview panel into the gallery beyond. A smattering of curious patrons of the Society quietly occupied chairs there, casually observing the meeting. She scrutinized their silhouettes with perceptive eyes. The bright electric lighting that made her position at the lectern so uncomfortably warm, though, failed to push back the penumbra far enough for her to make out any distinct details. Still, she examined the audience at length, even if the chance she might recognize any of its members was fleetingly small.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ms. Noceda, do you have anything else to add?” An insistent voice brought her attention back to the panel. It belonged to Hieronymus Bump, an older member of the Society who reminded her of a particularly obstinate camel she had ridden in Transoxiana.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her spine snapped rigid as she realized her mind had been wandering. “A-a-a-ah, no sir. I have nothing left to add. I thank the Royal Society for its time, and hope to hear the results of its consideration soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure you will, Ms. Noceda,” he replied tersely. “You may go.” She turned and stepped off the dais, only to be brought to a halt by his stern voice again. “Ms. Noceda, your map.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz gasped, then quickly spun around and pulled a large chart off the corkboard next to the lectern, face flush with embarrassment. The expensive map had the latest information on the geographical layout of the southernmost continent, along with a thin red line that she had drawn on it to illustrate her intended route. The coastlines were well noted with names for the various seas, bays, and fjords that incised them. But apart from the Transantarctic Mountains, the interior was devoid of markings. A barren wasteland. Terra Incognita. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She discovered that the large sheet of paper was unmanageable to carry and flapped in her face, so she tried to fold it as she walked towards the exit. She fumbled with its creases. It had come open so easily before the meeting. “Stupid thing, why won’t you close?” she muttered to herself, realizing how foolish she must look to the audience and panel. Someone in the gallery snort-laughed. She ended up crumpling it into a ball and carried it out of the chamber under her arm, practically kicking the heavy wooden door open before her. She sped down the hall, shooting the gaps between groups of clerical aids and secretaries for the Royal Society who turned to stare as she bolted past them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At last, she burst into the courtyard. She gasped for breath, but instead of fresh air she sucked in the wretched, claggy coal-smoke of a million factories and household furnaces that pervaded London. The sky was sullen and gray. She didn’t know the city well enough to tell if it was threatening to rain, or if this was just the usual overcast of oppressive smog. Regardless, she walked to the middle of the open space and leaned against a plinth that lofted a statue of Sir Isaac Newton to the height that the Royal Society, which was the primary lessee of the Burlington House, felt befitted one of their most famed members.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz uncrumpled the map, then slowly folded it back into the neat, small rectangle that it originally came in. The front panel bore fresh crinkles that evidenced her hasty exit. She gave up trying to smooth them, sighing, only to look up at the facade of the stately former mansion before her. It had originally been built in the seventeenth century, but was lavishly refurbished in the Palladian style by its previous owner. It was the first building in the Empire to adopt the architectural craze from Italy that had swept the continent. Luz admired it for a moment, and it conjured up a memory of a brief sojourn she had spent in Venice, tracking down a lost treasure that had been looted from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her favorite boots had gotten a thorough soaking after she had jumped off of a bridge to catch a rival, who had stolen the treasure from her. The thief had landed in a gondola and slipped away while Luz landed in the filthy water. All she could do was shake her fist and shout as Amity Blight slowly disappeared into a press of matching gondolas on the Canal Grando. Luz sighed. It was not the first or the last time that horrible woman had bested her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to win again,” a crisp, effeminate voice teased in her ear, close enough that she could feel the warmth of the speaker’s breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz jerked her head around to see who had sneaked up on her. She had let her guard down and seethed at herself for it. A person in her line of work couldn’t go around daydreaming. It was a good way to wind up dead, whether by four-legged beasts or the two-legged variety. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Blight,” she hissed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman who stood before her was attired as well as anyone in the city, wearing a stylish pink dress with vertical black lacework that crossed on her stomach and ascended to her shoulders. The shape of her bodice belied a stiff corset that lent her an elegant, exaggerated hourglass figure that Luz begrudgingly admitted to herself was quite fetching. She would never be caught dead in a dress like that, but she could appreciate it on another woman. A broad-brimmed hat decorated with egret feathers sat daintily on her head, tied under her chin by a broad strip of linen. It hid her most distinctive feature, a shock of mint green hair, cut short, although not as short as Luz’s. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s why I didn’t notice her. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Luz knew first-hand that Amity could wear rugged adventure gear as well as she could, but when it came to dressing like a proper lady, she had Luz beat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I sat in on your funding request,” Blight said coyly. “Taking Shackleton’s Beardmore route, huh? That’s going to cost you a lot of time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz’s eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve already got funding.” Amity lifted her chin. “And I’m putting my expedition together as we speak. I’m going to land at the Bay of Whales and find my own pass over the mountains. By my estimation, it will save me sixty miles or more. I’ll be at the pole before you even unload your dogs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz’s hands balled into fists, but she resisted the urge to start swinging, instead pressing her knuckles into the sides of her thighs. “Where’d ya get the money from, Blight? Take another advance on your inheritance from Daddy?” Amity’s father, Alador, was a wealthy shipping magnate and Member of Parliament, sitting in the House of Commons for one of the precincts of London. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz, on the other hand, had grown up in one of the rough factory districts in Birmingham, daughter to a widow of Dominican extraction. Her mother had worked hard in the textile mills to get her into a modest finishing school that churned out governesses and housekeepers for wealthy industrialists. She ran away within the first week. Despite that, she was an avid learner, a hard worker, and a free spirit, which led her to taking up positions on steamers navigating the British Empire’s lucrative oceanic trade routes. A knack for finding trouble in the world’s ports led her to new adventures, and she began to develop a reputation for producing sensational headlines. At first, newspapers offered to send her to follow dangerous leads, but she soon parlayed that into altruistic or scientific missions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amity had attended King’s College in Cambridge, matriculating as the top student in her class and the pride of her influential family. She could have married well and spent the rest of her life popping out heirs for some nobleman and attending tea parties. Barring that, she could have lived off a share of her father’s wealth as a thornback and London socialite. Instead, she seemed to dedicate the prodigious resources at her disposal to being a thorn in Luz’s side, turning up again and again to steal her glory. To what end, the daughter of a working-class mother couldn’t fathom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you worry your scruffy little head about that, Noceda. I’ve got a real backer; someone who isn’t just in it to sell Saturday editions.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The jibe struck home. Luz’s unbelievable stories would get relegated to the back page of the least profitable paper of the week if anything remotely important was happening in the Empire, like unrest in the colonies or a particularly scandalous faux pas at a royal ball. Luz stepped up to Amity’s face. She was half a head taller than the gentlewoman, though the latter wore fancy heels. “Oh, I’m gonna beat you, Amity. Even if you do have a head start. I’m gonna beat you good. I’ll stake my favorite boots on it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Deal.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amity Blight’s quick acceptance of terms took Luz by surprise. The only thing that made sense to her was that the socialite wanted them as a sort of trophy, to laud over Luz and humiliate her. “What do I get if I win, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She favored Luz with that superior smirk of hers. “If you were to win, hypothetically speaking, I’d fund your next adventure out of my own money.” With that, she turned and walked out of the courtyard through the colonnade onto busy Piccadilly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz's mouth dropped and she blinked, unable to process her rival's words. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What the heck kind of a bet is that? She’s gotta be sick in the head if she’s laying that on the line.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ms. Noceda!” Luz startled again. It was going to be a bad day if everyone kept sneaking up on her. She turned to face the elderly man who addressed her. It was Bump of the Royal Society. “Ms. Noceda. The Society’s panel has discussed your proposal, and it has been decided that the Royal Society of London will not be funding your expedition.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see. Thank you for your consideration.” She felt like she’d been hit in the gut by a charging bull. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Like that one time in Brazil, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she decided. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’d better kiss my boots goodbye.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Bump continued, “After the fiasco with Boscha Newcombe’s attempt for the pole earlier this year, the Society is not eager to finance any further activities in Antarctica at this time. I hope you understand, and we wish you the best in your future endeavors.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“O—okay.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say and turned towards the street. Her mind was spinning. She didn’t accept failure well. She had hoped to make a real name for herself with this one, a legitimate accomplishment. She wanted something that they would write about in the history books. She stumbled under the colonnade and onto the street where Amity Blight had disappeared from view.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was lost in her thoughts and wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to the people around her, for the fourth time in short succession. A diminutive man stepped in front of her, stopping her short. “Hey, you Luz Noceda?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz nodded, and took in his appearance. He was barely four feet tall and wore a black chauffeur's uniform with a white cap and round driving goggles. His mouth was buried behind a red scarf that obscured the lower part of his face. A round, gold button on his lapel provided his name, King.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got someone who wants to talk to you.” He gestured up the street to an automobile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The machines were becoming common in the streets of the city, displacing carriages as the preferred mode of transportation for the well-to-do. The one he led her towards was ruby red and enormous, with a bonnet that seemed to stretch a furlong in front of the driver’s compartment. The rear seats were completely enclosed, while the driver had the luxury of a windscreen and roof, but was otherwise unprotected from the elements or anything else. As they approached it, Luz noticed bespoke pedal extensions that allowed the small man to operate the controls. She peered in through the glass and detected the presence of a lady seated in the rear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The chauffeur opened the door and beckoned for her to take a seat inside. Luz climbed into the vehicle, appointed with sumptuous red velvet in a fashion that was not a significant departure from the horse-drawn carriages that were quickly falling out of vogue. She reluctantly sat on the rear-facing seat, though she would have preferred to face forward and keep an eye on the driver and the direction of travel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lady that sat opposite her wore a dress in yet another shade of crimson and held a polished rosewood cane topped with a carved owl. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Man, she must really like red. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The dress was cut in a fashion that befitted a much younger woman than she appeared to be, given her uncoifed mass of silvery hair. Her complexion was as pale as pale could get, almost sickly so. She kept in the shadowy corner of the cab, but looked Luz up and down with a shrewd eye. “So, where ya stayin’, kid?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, Broad Street. In Southwark.” Luz was taken aback by the contrasts the woman was exhibiting. She looked almost like a gentlewoman, but didn’t speak with the precise elocution that was drilled into the offspring of the upper crust at expensive boarding schools. She seemed roughened. Unfinished, somehow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lady pointed to her servant. “You heard her, Mr. King.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Lady Clawthorne.” He closed the door and climbed into the front compartment. A moment later the six cylinder engine burbled to life. King gave a black rubber bulb mounted next to him a squeeze, producing a comical honk, then Luz felt the heavy limousine merge gracefully into the flow of traffic.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clawthorne. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Even Luz, who was neither particularly connected to high society, nor in London very often, had heard the name. The sisters Clawthorne were whispered of everywhere in the Empire. Reclusive. Wealthy. Mysterious. There were rumors that they were deeply interested in the occult. Some of the more superstitious types even said that they were witches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz cleared her throat. “So, uh… thanks for the ride, M’lady. I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The aristocrat rapped the tip of her cane on the floor. “Name’s Edalyn. My friends, like King up there, call me Eda in private.” She gave Luz a wry smile that made her feel more at ease. “I’ve been following your career with interest, kid. You’ve got moxie. I like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, thanks. But why—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eda interrupted her. “I watched your presentation at the Society.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You and everyone else,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Luz grumbled to herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I heard they didn’t give you the money. They’re idiots. So how much ya need, ya think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you offering…” Luz blinked for a second, then her mind and her mouth shifted into top speed. “A couple thousand for dogs. Five thousand for food. I’ll need tents. Sleds. Uh, skis. Cold weather gear. And I’m going to have to hire a steamer for transportation…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry about the ship.” Edalyn smiled as she looked out the window. “I have one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it suited for the poles?” Luz asked. Ships designed for polar exploration were overbuilt, reinforced, and constructed of the toughest materials available to exacting specifications.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kid, the Owlbert will go anywhere I send it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luz nodded slowly. This conversation, though not the strangest she’d ever had, was becoming productive more quickly than she could keep up with. “But, I guess what I don’t understand is why. Why are you doing this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Edalyn continued looking out the window as they crossed the River Thames on the Waterloo Bridge. The murky, polluted water was bustling with runabouts, lighters, and barges of all description, and her countenance turned equally dark. “My sister, Lilith.” She said the name as if it were a swear. “We… don’t get along. She’s funding the Blight Expedition, and I don’t want her to win. So, it seems you and I have something in common.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see.” Luz had an uncomfortable feeling that the bad blood between the sisters was over her pay grade, so to speak. She didn’t try to delve into it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How much ya need, Luz?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stuck her tongue out as she went back to mentally tabulating her expenses. “Since you’ve already got the ship, I’d say fifty thousand sterling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Edalyn finally leaned into the light. Luz was shocked by her eyes. They blazed yellow, but with amorphous globs of black matter swimming in them. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What the hell? Is she dying or something?</span>
  </em>
  <span> The older woman stuck out her hand. “I’ll make it sixty-five. Get yourself the best equipment you can.” Luz shook her hand. Despite Edalyn’s frail appearance, her grip was strong. “I’ll send a telegram to your hotel with bank information tomorrow. Good luck. Keep in touch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The car pulled over. Southwark was a stark contrast to Mayfair. Clawthorne’s car, a Rolls-Royce, was the only one on the roughly cobbled street. Wagons pulled by teams of draft horses and loaded with industrial goods creaked past, traveling from railyards to factories. Ash sprinkled from the sky and collected in thin layers on anything that sat still long enough. Luz climbed out and walked up the steps of her hotel, little more than a pub with a few extra bedrooms above it in a building that hadn’t been renovated since it was rebuilt after the Great Fire in 1666. She heard the comical honk of its horn, turned, and watched the car pull away from the curb as it navigated between a few slow-moving wagons. Despite her grim surroundings, Luz was elated. She had her funding. The shipping arrangements were already handled. She might just be able to keep her boots afterall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <span>Coming soon</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chapter 2: The Desolate Shore</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Desolate Shore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Luz arrives in Antarctica</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">Chapter 2</span>
</p><p>The Desolate Shore</p><p> </p><p>1911, off the coast of the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica</p><p> </p><p>Luz was sitting at the desk in her cabin, examining a small, yellow slip of paper when the electric bell by the door of the room startled her with a series of short, shrill bursts. At any other time, she would have scowled at the intrusive device in annoyance and perhaps contemplated ripping its wires out, but instead she met the interruption with excitement. The purpose of the signal was to summon her to the bridge.</p><p>She stuffed the piece of paper in her pocket and quickly rose to her feet. The note was a telegram, and not one she was glad to have received. A messenger had handed it to Luz upon arriving in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was from Amity Blight, having been transmitted through a variety of wires and radio telegraph arrays from across the world, on Madeira in the Central Atlantic. The island had been Blight’s final port of call before arriving at the Bay of Whales, somewhere to the east of where the Owlbert was making its way through the Ross Sea.</p><p>Luz deduced that, based on the sending date and location, Amity had arrived in Antarctica a full week ahead of her. To anyone else who might have read it, the note seemed to be politely wishing her well on her journey, but to Luz it was practically dripping with her rival’s smug sarcasm. It had left her mood as grim as the roaring winds and towering waves that had plagued them crossing the Southern Ocean.</p><p>As they had approached the reaches of the continent, the seas became more mild, but choked with icebergs, forcing the Owlbert to pick its way through the vast, shifting maze. The impediment to their speed was infuriating to Luz, who had been certain that Amity’s advantage was growing by the minute.</p><p>Stomping her feet into her favorite boots, splayed in a haphazard jumble on the floor, and throwing an overcoat over her shoulders, she left the cabin in haste. The coat was made of seal skin and enveloped her slight frame like a tent, draping down to her ankles. It was of Inuit design, and the hood was trimmed in arctic fox fur. It was the most ideal clothing made for the environment ahead of her.</p><p>The ship rocked gently as she walked down a narrow hallway. She was accustomed to the movement, managing to navigate the corridor without stumbling into the walls. To her surprise, the Owlbert had turned out to be a wonder of maritime technology, featuring the latest innovations in design, such as compartmentalizing bulkheads, a double-layered hull, and a powerful steam turbine engine. It was small for a cargo steamer, and much larger than a private yacht, but was somehow a mixture of the two. The bridge sat amidship, just forward of the single funnel and perched above the main deck, allowing its captain a generous view in most directions.</p><p>The confines of the interior of the ship seemed to encompass almost every environ of Earth’s climate, from the wretched heat of the engine room, to the freezing cargo hold where the expedition’s sled dogs stayed when they weren’t exercising on the main deck. Fortunately, Luz’s quarters were located in a more temperate zone that proved to be comfortable, albeit far from luxurious. Having slung a hammock in her share of engine rooms, she wasn’t about to complain about having a small berth, desk, and water closet all to herself. It even had a tiny porthole, so she could watch the waves, more massive than any building in London, as they rose and fell around the ship. As such, she hadn’t felt like looking out the window very much.</p><p>There was one thing that confused her about the vessel, though. There seemed to be something hidden in the stern. She initially noticed that the corridors inside the ship didn’t run the full length, and she verified her suspicions by pacing on the main deck and comparing it to below. She could go thirty paces farther when on deck. Ever inquisitive, Luz attempted to gain access to the space, but couldn’t locate anything even resembling a hatch or door. Clawthorne had insisted it was an extra coal bunker when pressed for answers, but Luz knew that coal bunkers <em> had </em>to have hatches too. The mystery remained.</p><p>Just a few yards down the passageway, Luz found herself climbing a ships ladder, which was actually closer in design to a very steep set of stairs, up to the bridge. She had initially been surprised to discover that Lady Clawthorne herself captained the vessel, but as they spent more time together, she realized that Eda was not anything close to the average aristocrat. For starters, she had been to more ports than Luz had, and had engaged in some eyebrow-raising adventures of her own, judging by the collection of wanted posters that were proudly displayed in the Owlbert’s galley. She was rather tight-lipped about what exactly she did in her travels, but looking around the ship, Luz deduced there may have been some occasional bouts of smuggling and/or piracy in her recent past. She knew a patched-up bullet hole when she saw one, or a full dozen, like those riddling the wall above her bunk.</p><p>Eda was wearing a dark blue officer’s peacoat over another of her red dresses as she stood at the ship’s wheel, disinclined to let anyone else command the ship. She seemed particularly wary during their final approach in waters filled with ice.</p><p>“Ah, there ya are, kid,” Eda greeted her with a glance over her shoulder. “Just in time.”</p><p>Awestruck, Luz gasped as she rushed to the windows for her first sight of Earth’s last unexplored continent. Eda was threading the Owlbert between a pair of icebergs that dwarfed the ship, appearing as floating plateaus of bright white that filled the bridge's windows, when they parted and the land finally came into view. </p><p>Luz sucked in her breath and held it tightly as the sheer magnitude of the place swept over her. Ahead was open water, laced in reticulated patterns with bits of pack ice that the Owlbert was able to muscle aside. A pod of orcas regarded the intruding ship curiously from a safe distance. Further beyond, Luz made out the ice shelf itself, which those massive bergs had calved off of into the sea. In between was the edge of the sea ice, seeming as a flat, bright plain that extended from the open water back to the vertical, blue cliffs. Thousands of tiny, black specks were milling around there at the boundary between shining ice and dark water, jumping in and out in groups.</p><p>“Penguins!” she exclaimed, relishing the novelty of the sight. She had never seen a live penguin before, only an assortment of taxidermied specimens that the Natural History Museum had acquired for their collection. She took in more of the landscape, taking note of leopard seals sunning themselves on the ice. The packs of penguins kept a respectful distance from the languid predators, forming a corona around each one as if they exuded a magnetic field which repulsed the charming birds.</p><p>Proudly lording over the entire tableau were the twin summits of Ross Island, Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. Contrary to what one might expect, Mount Erebus was the larger of the two, and also the one that was actively volcanic. A tendril of smoke slithered from the prominent crater at the summit, soon dissipating into the easterly wind. They were named in honor of two of the ships of James Ross, who had explored this sea just seventy years prior to Luz’s expedition. The mountains’ namesakes posed prime examples of the dangers of polar exploration. Only a handful of years after sailing into this sound, another explorer, Sir John Franklin, took the vessels to look for the fabled Northwest Passage through the Arctic Ocean and was never heard from again. The Inuit people she had met on Victoria Island had stories of crazed and haggard Europeans dragging lifeboats behind them over the frozen sea, which Luz suspected were the last known eye witness accounts of that expedition. However, if she were to share their fate — deep in the interior of the continent — no one would be there to bear witness, not even the delightful penguins, who stayed in close proximity to the ocean.</p><p>Ross Island had a spit of land to the south of Mount Erebus, where Ernest Shackleton had made his base when surveying the northerly face of the Transantarctic Mountain range. It was a dismal and bleak place with black, volcanic gravel exposed in patches amidst the blown snow. That was where Luz anticipated setting up her camp. They were originally going to spend a week there, acclimating to the sub-freezing temperatures and preparing to venture inland, but the troubling telegram forced her to accelerate her timetable.</p><p>“You might wanna hold onto something.” Eda’s unsolicited advice broke her reverie. She pushed a lever to its forward stop, which sent a signal to the engine room. “Ramming speed, Mr. King!” She winked at Luz and snort-laughed. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”</p><p>King, who was monitoring their course on a sounding chart in the corner of the bridge, looked up from his work. “She literally says it every time.” The short man had exchanged his white chauffeur’s cap for a similarly white woolen beanie, but otherwise remained exactly as he had been when Luz first encountered him in London; she still hadn’t gotten a clear look at his face under his goggles and scarf. He had turned out to be rather jovial, but with an oversized penchant for aggression that was surprising, given his diminutive stature. King had intimated that in addition to being Lady Clawthorne’s chauffeur and butler, he was also her bodyguard and a master pugilist. Luz considered the claims to be fairly dubious.</p><p>A moment later, Luz felt a change in the steel deck below her feet. The normally subtle vibration of the steam turbine, which permeated the structure of the ship and had lulled her to sleep over the course of the journey, grew into a thunderous rumble. She quickly gripped the edge of the console in front of her.</p><p>The Owlbert’s bow lifted as it gained speed. Pieces of pack ice churned chaotically in the ship’s wake as it powered past them. Luz could hear the sled dogs in the hold yelping in alarm over the din of the engine. Her stomach clenched as the solid sea ice loomed large in front of them, and her knuckles went white from holding on. The penguins, sensing the oncoming threat, scrambled out of the way. </p><p>She glanced at Eda in alarm, shouting, “You’ve done this before, right?”</p><p>“First time for everything.” Eda smirked at her discomfort. “Relax, kid. The Owlbert’s hull is reinforced.” She patted the ship’s wheel lovingly.</p><p>With that, the bow impacted the ice, pitching dramatically skyward as it rode up onto it, then falling again as the surface cracked and gave way beneath the Owlbert’s mass. The action repeated three more times until the ship had lost its momentum in full. They were thoroughly embedded, surrounded on all sides, save only for the freshly cut channel behind the stern. </p><p>Eda ran the lever back, sending a signal to the engine room to cut power. The sudden calm that followed was unsettling. Luz realized she was still holding on in fright and released the console. Her fingers hurt.</p><p>The aristocrat broke the silence. “You’d better get unloaded, kid. I need to pull out of here before the ice reforms behind us.”</p><p>“Right!” She turned to leave, but dallied just a moment to fasten her coat.</p><p>Eda regarded her servant. “King, you run the crane.”</p><p>“‘King, run the crane!’,” he mocked her. “How come you never do any of the real work?”</p><p>“S’cuse me?” She raised a brow over one of her yellow eyes. Motes of black matter swam in them. “Who just captained us into this ice hole? That’s right, me. And I’m going to the galley for some coffee.”</p><p>“Sure! You do the fun stuff, but the only thing you ever lift around here is your mug,” he jibed.</p><p>Eda scoffed back at him. “That’s because I pay <em> you </em> to do the lifting. Speaking of which, the crane! Now!” She stormed down the ships ladder and took the main passageway towards the stern.</p><p>Luz and King followed her down, but turned towards the bow instead. Luz raised her fur-lined hood against the anticipated cold. It was summer in Antarctica, but the temperature would just barely go over zero, Fahrenheit. She glanced at the chronometer she wore on her wrist before slipping on her mittens. The time reading took her by surprise. It was almost midnight, despite the generous daylight. This was the bottom of the world, she remembered. The sun would not set again until close to autumn.</p><p>Of the many bundles of cargo that were stored on the Owlbert, the first things unloaded onto the ice were the dogs. These beasts of burden had spent months cooped up on the ship, and needed to get out and renew their endurance. They were a breed that the Inuit used, and that Luz had grown to appreciate in the time that she had spent on Victoria Island. They were large and powerful, equipped with thick fur coats, and could run for miles without faltering. Inuit hunters knew that their lives depended on the capabilities of their dogs, and bred them accordingly. Luz had acquired forty-two of the creatures; a dozen for each sled, plus six more in reserve.</p><p>King unlimbered the crane and used it to deploy the gangplank. Once he had it securely in place, Luz opened the large hatch over the hold. The dogs coursed out in a cacophony of yips and woofs, spilling onto the main deck. Their coats were mottled white and gray, which lent them the appearance of wolves, save only for their stubbornly curled tails. They discovered the gangplank, running down onto the ice and engaged in a frenetic free-for-all, much to the dismay of the dozens of penguins who had just returned to vicinity to inspect the new, unasked for addition to their environment. The dogs bounded and played together in the fresh air, chasing each other and rolling in the snow.</p><p>They were followed out of the hold by Luz’s two expedition-mates, dressed in seal skin parkas that matched her own. </p><p>Dr. Willow Park was one of the world’s leading experts in botany, not that any of her male colleagues at Oxford could bring themselves to admit it. She had initially reached out to Luz for assistance with her work in the Amazon Basin. The scientist had a theory that the distribution of a certain species of fruit-bearing tree was not natural, but the result of the widespread agricultural practices of a pre-contact indigenous culture. Her colleagues scoffed at her ideas and impeded her research. Luz had leveraged her contacts in the newspaper industry to secure funding for that trip, promising them sensational photos and lurid reports of hostile natives and terrifying beasts. Instead, the two women returned with hundreds of newly documented specimens of plants and photos of animals. They became fast friends along the way. When Luz had proposed the polar expedition, Willow leaped for the chance despite having no professional stake in the barren, icy wasteland at the bottom of the world.</p><p>Her compatriot was another matter entirely. Luz had met Augustus ‘Gus’ Porter in Trafalgar Square in London, ostensibly busking for coins with simple feats of street magic. The cheerful and charismatic young immigrant from the Sahel wowed the crowds with his convincing illusions, but Luz was more impressed with the way he pickpocketed his wealthy audience members’ belongings, even as they chuckled at his affable mien. </p><p>His legerdemain skills had come in handy in Venice where Luz had employed him to serrupticiously swap attache cases with a radical rightwing Italian nationalist who was attempting to barter antiquities for weapons, in a bid to overthrow the government. Gus too was eager to join Luz’s expedition, albeit to avoid a Scotland Yard inquiry about his connection to a string of bank fraud cases in London. In his defense, the bank in question had recently foreclosed on an orphanage in London’s Cripplegate and sold the lot to an unscrupulous developer who was on the bank’s board of directors. He insisted there was no better place to lay low from the heat than the coldest and most southerly locale in the world.</p><p>They joined Luz at the gunwale, looking out over the frozen expanse in the quietude of contemplation. There was a dangerous, stark beauty to the place. It was unadorned by anything that might give comfort or peace of mind. Fierce and unyielding, it was no person’s land. No peoples’. It was masterless. The whole of it sparkled audaciously in the bright midnight sun. If it was possible to have a sense of camaraderie with a landscape, Luz felt it for this icy, barren wasteland. But the lessons of the past said it was no friend; it could easily turn on her and kill her without mercy. She shivered, more in awe of its unashamed glory than from the relentless, penetrating cold.</p><p>Behind them, King was already lifting the first bundle of supplies out of the hold with the deck crane. Wrapped in rope netting, it rose above their heads and swung out in space over the side of the Owlbert, then descended directly onto the ice.</p><p>“We’re really doin’ this, aren’t we?” It was Gus that broke the companionable stillness.</p><p>Luz grinned with a confidence that was twice that which she was feeling. “We sure are! Blight has a head start on us, but I know we can still catch up if we move fast enough. It’s going to take her some time to find a new pass over the mountains, after all. And, more importantly, she doesn’t have you guys!”</p><p>What Amity did have, by all reports, was the fastest ship in the Blight merchant fleet, more sleds and sled dogs, a professional dog handler, and extra people to scout the mountain passes for her. They were even bringing a small herd of reindeer from Finland for fresh meat. The mysterious Lilith Clawthorne was also contributing her own personal security detail to the expedition, for some reason. That Amity managed the logistics of it all so effortlessly was mind-boggling to Luz. If the woman weren’t such a perpetual pest, Luz would have loved to have her on her team.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Willow chimed in. “We’ll get the camp set up right away.” Gus had used his magician ingenuity to design a set of prefabricated cabins that were easily transported, but could be assembled in minutes. “Then it’s just a matter of getting the dogs up to speed. It’ll be two days, tops.”</p><p>One of the sled dogs left the romping cohort and made its way back up the gangplank, breath huffing in clouds of steam and tongue lolling out clownishly. He laid down at their feet and rested his large head on Luz’s boot. It was the one the team called Lucky. He had earned the moniker by refusing to reenter the hold during rough seas. A large wave had crashed over the deck; everyone who had seen him go over the side thought he was gone for good. But the very next wave set him safely back on the ship, almost as if the sea goddess, Rán, had saved him for some purpose.</p><p>Luz bent down and scratched his head. “You’re gonna share your luck with me, aren’t ya, boy? Yeah, you are!”</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u"> Coming soon </span>
</p><p>Chapter 3: Going South</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Going South</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Amity reflects on her arrival in Antarctica, her difficulties, and the reason she is trying to reach the South Pole</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><span class="u"> Chapter </span> 3</p><p>Going South</p><p> </p><p>1911, Lilith Clawthorne Glacier, Transantarctic Mountain Range</p><p>Amity whistled to stop her team of dogs at the summit of the pass, looking back as icy winds teased the coal-black fringe of her parka. Far in the distance to the north across a vast, icy waste was the Bay of Whales, where the Odalia was moored, waiting for her and her team to return in triumph from the pole. Despite being over fifty miles behind her, the landmark was still visible by virtue of the cold, clear air in that remote place. <em> Imagine if London could be like this, </em>she thought circumspectly. But she was so far from London; so far from even the edge of the British Empire and the so-called civilized world, that it boggled the mind.</p><p>The Odalia, named for her mother, was the fastest in her family’s merchant fleet. It was usually reserved for the lucrative passenger route between Great Britain and the Far East, but Amity had pulled some strings — her father’s, to be precise — and requisitioned the steamer to bring her to Antarctica. In the shipping industry, the Odalia was like a thoroughbred, fast, but also delicate; it couldn’t dock directly to the sea ice for fear of ripping open its hull on the sharp edges. Therefore Amity had to unload her team and cargo to shore by jon boat, a time-consuming process. That had been the only significant delay in her plan thus far.</p><p>Once they had established their base and refreshed their dogs, the scouts had taken a dog team and sled and spread out, seeking a way over the mountains. They were both veterans of polar exploration, even having been to Antarctica before with Ernest Shackleton. To Amity’s immense relief, it had only taken a matter of days for them to find a new path to the interior by climbing a glacier which they had subsequently named for their financier, Lady Lilith Clawthorne. </p><p>Despite her good fortune, something felt off to Amity, like she wasn’t seeing the whole picture, or that some detail was escaping her notice. She was a woman who prided herself on her diligence and thoroughness, and the foreboding itched in her brain. It had started with Steven Hood. The tall, muscular blond man with a thick mustache and pale blue eyes was the leader of the security detail that Lilith had insisted accompany her. Amity hadn’t really felt that she needed bodyguards for this trip, being that they were far beyond the range of any human threat, but it seemed to be a small stipulation to agree to in order to get the necessary funding. It was only after the voyage was underway that Steve and his two lackeys began to get under her skin with their arrogant swagger and surly demeanors.</p><p>They amused themselves during the voyage by teasing the sled dogs, dangling bits of food just outside their cages and taunting them until they were lunging at the bars in a howling frenzy. Amity might have been indifferent to the large beasts if they had not been both expensive as hell and utterly critical to her success. She was the type of lady that preferred a cat or a small, demure lap spaniel, not a hulking, rambunctious pile of shed hair and drool. Nonetheless, she didn’t approve of their treatment by the men.</p><p>Furthermore, the bodyguards seemed to push around the crew of the Odalia to an unseemly degree, interfering with the staff or causing disturbances. Amity had known a fair share of aristocrats who mistreated their servants, and had been trained from a young age to look the other way despite any misgivings she might have. But these were <em> her </em> people. <em> Her </em>family’s employees, the best in the business. And, as leader of the expedition, it fell on her to keep order. So, she had sat Steve down and set some boundaries for him and his men. And he stared at her the whole time, in spiteful, insolent silence. The talk had seemed to have settled matters. The security team had kept to themselves for the rest of the voyage. And even after they disembarked onto the ice, they mostly sat around the makeshift cabins, complaining about the food, the cold, and the never-ending daylight.</p><p>Except Steve. He seemed restless, prowling like a nervous animal. He had often wandered out of camp alone on a pair of skis and with a pickaxe strapped to his back. He never said exactly where he would go on those excursions. “Lookin’ around,” he would mutter when asked. Amity had repressed a hint of disappointment each time he returned and left the pickaxe by the door to his cabin like an ominous symbol of his presence. If Amity had been one of the sled dogs, her hackles would have raised instantly at the sight of him. To put it simply, he gave her the creeps.</p><p>The team had packed everything they needed onto the sleds, each one carrying a portion of each type of supply, so that in the event of an emergency, a sled wouldn’t be lost with a significant amount of any one thing. They carried food for themselves and the dogs, canned meat with assorted berries for added nutrients. Tents, insulated to maximize warmth retention. Special portable stoves designed in Sweden for both heating and cooking, and kerosene fuel for them. Each member of the team was provided with a map of their course and navigational tools in case they got lost.  Each also had a pair of hickory skis. Everything was packed, strapped down, and double-checked. The bodyguards had strenuously insisted on packing their own sleds, despite objections from the others, and wouldn’t even let anyone else inspect them. This had led to a great deal of tension within the party, but Amity let it slide for the sake of expediency.  Everybody had done what they could to make themselves prepared, mentally and physically, to enter the most inhospitable terrain on the planet.</p><p>Then, just hours before they were set to begin, two of Amity’s hand-picked expedition members came down ill. Viney Dawson was Amity’s dog-handler. She was a professional veterinarian and trainer, expected to look after the health of the dog teams throughout the expedition. The other was Amelia Planck, another person with green hair only a shade or two lighter than Amity’s. Amelia had led her own expedition to Antarctica several years before, exploring the coast of Queen Maud Land on the other side of the continent, and knew how to handle the unforeseeable problems that might occur. They were both critical team members and both afflicted with sudden bouts of intense intestinal distress and forced to remain behind on the Odalia under the watchful eye of the ship’s physician.</p><p>That left Amity with the two scouts, three bodyguards, eighty sled dogs, and a looming sense of unease about the journey ahead.</p><p>They had set out, whisking across the Ross Ice Shelf at the dogs’ full speed, passing a nameless bulge along the way that belied a lone mountain slumbering deep beneath it. Heading southbound. Hours turned into days as the sun slowly rolled around the sky in circles, never setting. They stopped to rest the animals every three hours, setting up the tents to sleep after twelve. Gradually, the Transantarctic Mountains had come into view, rising slowly like a cloud on the distant horizon.</p><p>They had come, unerring, directly to the Lilith Clawthorne Glacier, a river of ice that was ever so slowly carving a notch in the ridgeline, and streaked with strata of dirt and rock it had accumulated over the millennia. Traveling up the face had been relatively uneventful with the scouts leading the way along the route they had discovered. They’d had the good sense to mark the hazards they’d found with colored stakes ahead of time and there were no close calls with crevasses or other dangers. </p><p>The single challenge of the Lilith Clawthorne Glacier was an escarpment mid-way up. They had tackled this problem by having the scouts climb the sheer sixty foot cliff, driving pitons, climbing spikes, into the ice as they went. Once they had achieved the top, they lowered a rope. Amity and the bodyguards tied one of the Odalia’s cargo nets to the bottom of the rope and enticed some of the sled dogs into it with bits of canned meat. The scouts had then pulled the dogs to the top a few at a time. After several dogs were up, the scouts didn’t have to do any more lifting. They harnessed the dogs to their end of the rope and the canines did the work for them, bringing up the rest of the animals, the six heavily-laden sleds, and finally, Lady Clawthorne’s security detail. Amity had opted to climb the pitons rather than be awkwardly restrained in a net with Steve or either of his two loathsome underlings for any matter of moments.</p><p>From there, they had reconnected the dog teams to the sleds and continued to make their way up the glacier, threading a path between the slippery inclines and treacherous crevasses that the scouts had previously surveyed.</p><p>Driving her sled on that course had largely been mindless work. Amity’s dogs had followed the sled of the scout in front of her, leaving her ample time to contemplate her rival, who had surely arrived on the continent by then. </p><p>Noceda was already a budding celebrity in the newspapers when Amity first encountered her at Cambridge years before. The prideful, youngest daughter of the Blight family had been the top student in her class there and the star pupil of her many teachers. But there had been one she admired above all the others, Professor Julia Corvia, who embodied the intelligence, industriousness, and fortitude that Amity wished for herself. The professor not only taught at King’s College, she ran her own experimental laboratory, lavishly funded by some obscure department in the British Government, and devoted to applied pharmacology.</p><p>Amity had spent many of her hours in Cambridge studying at the side of Corvia, assisting on countless experiments until she could write formal lab reports in her sleep. She had sometimes boasted, and later lamented, that she had contributed more to the professor’s work than any of the paid assistants. For it was true that Julia Corvia was on the verge of a breakthrough that would make her famous throughout the British Empire. The objective of their research, Amity had been told, was a miraculous medicine that would reinvigorate anyone, bringing them back from any detriment or lethargy, even those on the precipice of death. It was to be a variant of the recently developed wonder drug, methamphetamine. Corvia had even let slip that the War Office was especially interested in its development, a sure sign that a lucrative contract was in the offing if the medicine proved successful. It was officially referred to as Project Abomination — a horrid name, in Amity’s opinion — for reasons that she had not been made privy to.</p><p>After years of hard work, it had come time for Abomination’s clinical trials. Amity had wanted to help distribute the medicine to the test subjects, to have the satisfaction of seeing people receive the remedies they desperately needed. But Corvia had held her back in the lab and requested that she assist in adjusting each new batch of doses based on feedback from the trials. Amity had reluctantly complied. If only she had known what had been going on out there.</p><p>She remembered very clearly the last day she had seen Professor Julia Covia. It had been late winter in her final year of university. The city of Cambridge was damp and cold that day. A steady drizzle fell from dreary skies, spattering ambivalently on the windows of Corvia’s laboratory, a converted four-story neo-gothic dormitory built of pale limestone surmounted by an old-fashioned lead sheet roof. Amity and the professor had been working side by side, fine-tuning the latest batch of Abomination for production when they heard a crash and breaking glass in Corvia’s private office. They both stormed in to discover a lanky, medium-complexioned young woman in men’s clothing rifling through the drawers in the office’s large, utilitarian desk.</p><p>The woman — Amity later discovered that she was <em> the </em> Luz Noceda — had given her a sly, coquettish wink, then grabbed a handful of folders and bolted for the broken window, leaping through it with no regard for her own safety. Amity’s heart had skipped a beat, although she was unsure if it was due to the woman’s rakish comportment or the suddenness of her departure. The office was on the third floor, and she had hesitantly approached the shattered fenestration, expecting to see a lifeless body crumpled on the turf below. Instead, she had found a dancing rope and the infiltrator already climbing over the eaves another story above her head.</p><p>Corvia had roughly pushed Amity aside, thrusting an open bottle of Abomination tablets into her hand. It was empty. Amity remembered being shocked that the professor had so carelessly swallowed such a dangerously large dose of the medication for reasons she had not been able to comprehend. If anyone understood the risks of taking too much, it should have been Julia. She had a wild look in eyes as the chemicals began to affect her. Grabbing the wet rope, the professor had hoisted herself up to the roof with graceless fury, all the while shouting threats and blasphemous epithets at the escaping burglar.</p><p>Amity had run down the flights of stairs and out of the building in alarm, not even bothering to don her coat in her haste, only to discover the intruder tussling with Corvia on the rain-slick lead sheets of the roof. The professor had tackled the young woman, who lost her footing. They both fell and began to slide down the slope of the roof. Only Noceda had pulled a large knife from under her coat and rammed the tip through the soft sheet metal, abating her inertia, while Corvia plummeted into some shrubbery on the ground below. Noceda even had the nerve to flash a victorious smirk at Amity before clambering to her feet and disappearing across the Cambridge skyline.</p><p>The next day, Corvia’s name had been all over the newspapers. Luz had released the stolen documents to every printing office in London’s Fleet Street. It had turned out that Amity had been lied to. There were no clinical trials. The professor had been providing Abomination tablets to factories in Birmingham in an attempt to extract more hours from their laborers. Extended use of the drug had apparently been producing severe dependence and other deleterious side effects in the workers, which included Luz’s mother, Camila Noceda. Public outrage proved swift and merciless. The laboratory was shut down immediately and Amity never saw Professor Corvia again. To make matters worse, her aspirations of entering the scientific domain had been razed as well. No one wanted to work with anyone associated with the professor, especially not her protege. </p><p>In the haze of her downfall, Amity’s mind had fixated on the singular person she held responsible, the young adventurer with the roguish grin, Luz Noceda. She had hated her at first, cursing her, and obsessed over newspaper clippings about the woman’s exploits. With a mind for revenge, she had deduced that Noceda operated primarily in and around ports. She then successfully utilized the Blight India Company’s global network of shipping offices and their telegraphs to monitor her movements and whereabouts. She had studied the information, learned Luz’s habits, her successes, but also the litany of good deeds she had done. Amity’s anger gradually subsided, though the fascination remained. She compiled an idea in her mind of who this strange woman was. What she was. Selfless. Heroic. Clever. Noble. Then one day while reading a newspaper, she realized what Noceda’s next act would be.</p><p>She had instantly seized on the opportunity, taking the next available steamer to race Luz to that objective. And she had won. She had ended up with some mildly interesting trinkets, but the visage of confusion and frustration on the other woman’s face had been the real prize. Amity was hooked. If she couldn’t pursue her dreams of scientific accomplishment, she could at least glean satisfaction from besting Luz Noceda. As one adventure followed another, she began to develop an appreciation for the working class upstart, perhaps even an affection. Luz was not easily beaten, and Amity grew to respect her for it and adored the challenge. It became a sort of very expensive game for her, a private chess match that spanned the British Empire and beyond. Luz would decide on a goal, Amity would learn of it, then swoop in and attempt to gain it before Noceda could.</p><p>Now, they were both at the bottom of the world. Luz was trying to make history. Amity cared little for such things, not that she told her backer that. If Lilith Clawthorne wanted to become famous for financing the first expedition to reach the South Pole, that was her business. Amity’s true motivation was much more personal: to get to the pole before Luz and leave a sign of her passing that would aggravate her rival. She would love to be able to see the look on Noceda’s face when she discovered that Amity beat her again, but Antarctica was no friend to loiterers. She would have to wait until their next encounter to offer her smug condolences.</p><p>“Hey!” A voice shouted, interrupting her musings. It was Steve. <em>That bastard. </em>Amity mentally braced herself for whatever uncouth, stupid utterance he was about to spew. “You gonna stare all day or what? Let’s go!” It was, in fact, about eleven at night, not that he could tell that from the ample sunlight. <em>And I’m in charge here!</em> <em>What makes him think he can speak to me like that?</em> She would have to set him straight on their next stop.</p><p>She took one last look northward and sighed. Then she clicked her tongue, prompting the dogs to lean into their harnesses and they were off again. To the pole. To victory.</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u">Coming </span>
  <span class="u">soon</span>
</p><p>Chapter 4: The Pitfalls of Beardmore Glacier</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Special thanks to Julia Corvia for making a cameo appearance and allowing me to vilify her.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Special thanks to my beta readers and the Good Witch Society</p><p>The Good Witch Society is a collective of creative minds dedicated to art, writing, music, and more in The Owl House fandom. If you are interested, join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/HD8HeTaG</p></blockquote></div></div>
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